The weapons used in fencing sport, have blades made of steel, which in most of the cases generate physical pain during fencing touches, and represent a safety risk. It would be advantageous to eliminate the metal weapons from fencing sport, but in the same time to keep the capability of electrical detection of touches. Games with swords made of foam have been proposed for fencing, but none have the capability of the current invention which delivers precise electronic scoring system with wireless transmission of fencing touches, which makes it suitable for score-based competitions.
The rules for scoring in traditional fencing are complex, and at least one year of competitive experience is needed in order to understand how scoring rules are applied by the referees. One of the objects of this invention is to provide a scoring board apparatus which has the scoring rules incorporated in a micro-controller, which makes the fencing scoring rules simple, and easy to understand in the first day of training.
In traditional fencing, the start and the stop of fencing rounds are done based on the verbal commands from the referee. This creates confusion if the referee makes calls to stop the fencing round right in the middle of a pending fencing action, and some scoring points are invalidated because it is not clear if the fencing touch occurred before or after the referee's call. The current invention offers the solution to control the scoring apparatus with a radio remote apparatus, which enables or disables instantly the part of the electrical circuit which validates the fencing touches in order to score points.
Another object of this invention is to make the start and stop commands sent by the radio remote apparatus visible such that the players can see when the buttons are operated on the radio remote apparatus. This feature is supported by current invention by adding a wrist collar apparatus, which has incorporated lighting devices to emit light of predefined colors when the radio remote apparatus is operated.
The current fencing scoring devices indicate the winner of each scoring point by light signals on the scoring board. But during a fencing round, the two players could move far from the scoring board, so they are not able to see whether a fencing action succeeded to create a valid scoring point. The current invention offers the solution to install lighting devices on the blades of the fencing weapon, allowing this way to introduce light signaling by emitting predefined colors of light when one of the players wins a scoring point. The same lighting devices installed on the blades of the fencing weapon, are used by the current invention, to emit lighting signals when the radio remote apparatus is operated either to start or end the fencing rounds.
Wireless scoring systems have been proposed for sport fencing in the past, but none brings into play weapons made of foam, rubber or plastic, which have the capability to detect fencing touches employing electrical sensors on all sides of the blade.
The Linsay U.S. Pat No. U.S.20060100022 describes a wireless scoring system for fencing with weapons which have metallic blades
The Aldridge U.S. Pat. No. 6,700,051 describes a system for scoring contact sports, and in particular karate. Fencing and other contact sports are mentioned but not described with any particularity.
The Alvaro U.S. Pat. No. 6,612,968 shows a fencing weapon made of plastic having a switch at the top of the weapon, thus fencing touches are possible only with the tip of the weapon.
The Delcayre U.S. Pat. No. 4,030,731 describes a scoring system for fencing which uses metallic weapons.